The Libertarian Futurist Society has announced the winners of this year’s Prometheus Awards as follows:

Novel: Darkship Thieves, Sarah Hoyt (Baen Books)

Hall of Fame: Animal Farm, George Orwell

Sarah Hoyt will receive a plaque and a one-ounce gold coin, while a smaller gold coin and a plaque will be presented to Orwell’s estate. The award ceremony will take place during Renovation, the 69th World Science Fiction Convention, to be held Aug. 17-21 in Reno, Nevada.

The press release included the following comments on the winning works:

Darkship Thieves features an exciting, coming-of-age saga in which a heroic woman fights for her freedom and identity against a tyrannical Earth. Hoyt’s novel, dedicated to Robert A. Heinlein, depicts a plausible anarchist society among the asteroids. Hoyt is a prolific writer of novels and short fiction, though this is her first time as Prometheus finalist.

Orwell won the Hall of Fame award for his novel 1984, fittingly, in 1984, the second year the award was given. Animal Farm has been a finalist for the Hall of Fame award multiple times. Animal Farm, a short novel, retells the story of the Russian Revolution in the literary form of a beast fable, reflecting the post-World War II disillusionment of many communists. The story introduced the phrase “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” which has been borrowed innumerable times to pillory many political movements that claimed to be fighting for equality. Orwell’s story is widely considered both a classic work, and a devastating critique of Stalinism.